There's plenty of research counter to that, showing that regardless of negative or positive events happening in one's life, people tend back towards the same happiness they were at after a few years.
Funny enough the only example I've found of an "event" having a long term positive effect is cosmetic surgery
Any links? It isn't clear whether you are talking about cosmetic surgery to mitigate an obvious issue (for example, correcting a hair lip or removing a disfiguring facial birthmark), as compared to cosmetic beauty enhancements (nose job or tummy tuck). I would guess "enhancements" have a very strong sampling bias, because of a strong correlations with disposable income, belonging to certain social groups, and the type of person that prioritises surgery over other expenses. Adjusting to remove bias would be problematic?
I also suspect that there would be an inherent bias in reported studies, because the cosmetic surgery industry will fund and publish results that benefit the industry?
Copy-pasted from a 2006 paper by Bruce Headey I had lying around. I haven't looked into this in a few years but you might be able chase those refs down if you're interested
I think it's astounding that people take happiness-set-point theory so literally. Has everyone here been uniformly happy/miserable throughout their life? I certainly haven't - when things have been bad I've been miserable, when things have been good I've been happy
I don't agree with the implication that genetics are to blame, but rather I believe it is incredibly difficult for a person to change their core beliefs, even when reality is at odds with those beliefs.